Rating: 
Summary: Introduction to Programing strategies in EasyLanguage
Review: "Building Winning Trading Systems With TradeStation" is brand new and probably the best 'Intro to EasyLanguage' currently available other than the manuals TradeStation itself offers. The title suggests it is a strategy book, but the 'strategy' section is only about 50 pages of a 375 page book. The rest of the text is a good intro to TradeStation, EasyLanguage and trading, including tips on debugging, performance reports, StopLoss exits and other somewhat obscure topics.Other EasyLanguage guides are somewhat dated (though, I still find them interesting). Check out "Ask Mr. EasyLanguage" and "Using Easy Language" if you want to comparison shop. Much of the book can be found elsewhere, particularly the online TradeStation manuals. 90 pages of appendix comes straight from the online 'EasyLanguage Reference Guide' (a pdf file). What is unique about the book is the 'system development' perspective. The online guides offer little or no help developing trading systems. The CD contains the code described in the book. The code could have been put on 2 floppy disks, but I guess a CD is cheaper and saves space. Table of Contents:
1. Fundamentals (What is EasyLanguage?) pg 1-29
2. EasyLanguage Program Structure pg 30-38
3. Program Control Structures (if-then-else) pg 39-51
4. TradeStation Analysis Techniques pg 52-75
5. System Performance pg 77-108
6. Trading Strategies pg 109-156
7. Debugging pg 157-166
8. Research topics pg 168-193
9. Percent Change Charts (Jan Arps) pg 194-200
10. Options pg 201-227
11. Interviews with EasyLanguage Developers pg 228-276
12. Appendix pg 283-380
13. Index pg 381-389
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I acquired this book because the authors had previously written a very good one, "The ultimate trading guide". I am very dissatisfied. There is nothing here that you can not learn by reading the Trade Station manual. I was expecting to learn some of the fine points of the software, the use of DLL's, or the interphasing to other software. Unfortunately, I did not learn a thing. There are also some strategy examples which are slight modifications of the ones appearing in their previous book, and some interviews with system developers, that are unfortunately about 2 years old. What can you learn from the answer to questions like "What do you think the hot markets and stocks are this year?", when the answers are two years old?
In summary, overpriced and almost useless.
Rating:
Summary: A Well-Written Book
Review: I congratulate you on your newest book, "Building Winning Trading Systems with TradeStation". I found it to be well organized, written with lots of useful angles from a code-writer's perspective, and reflective of a seasoned trader's maturity. I particularly like the perf. table on page 148. I rarely use TradeStation's internal perf. summaries and instead write statistics out to a text file. I would have liked to see the code for calculating longest flat time, avg. trades per year, % winning months, and % time in market. Maybe you could add this level of detail to the sequel. Again, a nice book. We will encourage our clients to buy a copy. Neal Falkenberry, CFA
President
Tick Data, Inc.
Autumn Wind Capital Partners, LLC
Rating:
Summary: A Well-Written Book
Review: I congratulate you on your newest book, "Building Winning Trading Systems with TradeStation". I found it to be well organized, written with lots of useful angles from a code-writer's perspective, and reflective of a seasoned trader's maturity. I particularly like the perf. table on page 148. I rarely use TradeStation's internal perf. summaries and instead write statistics out to a text file. I would have liked to see the code for calculating longest flat time, avg. trades per year, % winning months, and % time in market. Maybe you could add this level of detail to the sequel. Again, a nice book. We will encourage our clients to buy a copy. Neal Falkenberry, CFA
President
Tick Data, Inc.
Autumn Wind Capital Partners, LLC
Rating:
Summary: A Truly "Robust" Book For Serious Traders
Review: I gave this book the maximum 5 stars because its overall impact on me as a trader was so profound. I would say it catalyzed a revolution in my success rate to such an extent that I now feel capable of making a living at this profession for the first time in my career. Obviously (as the title suggests) the book is primarily about how to use Tradestation software, or more specifically, the programming language that comes with TS known as Easylanguage. Long regarded as an oxymoron by those in the know, 'Easylanguage' is in fact anything but easy...it can be downright daunting at times. But this book really helps to break the ice by enabling dedicated students to get a working feel for the ins and outs of Tradestation and its various idiosyncrasies. Worth the price of the book alone is the chapter about trading strategies (chapter 6), subtitled by the authors "The Big Damn Chapter on Trading Strategies". A word to the wise - the SuperCombo System elucidated in this chapter contains all the elements to propel the reader much closer to that final elusive goal of consistent profitability. Perhaps you will need to modify it a bit here and there to suit your chosen market, but in the final analysis the seed concepts embedded within this single mechanical trading approach are robust and universal enough to grind out real money day in and day out for a long, long time to come. Please don't get me wrong - this is not so much a ready-made formula as it is a theoretical framework which needs to be "fleshed out" through hard work in order to be fully viable. I have always had a great deal of respect for John Hill and George Pruitt, both because of their candor and straightforwardness and because of their willingness to tirelessly follow a lead through to the end in order to discover the truth. "Building Winning Trading Systems with Tradestation" is more than a book about Easylanguage, it is a Magnus Opus of sorts, weaving many different ideas on many different levels in order to reveal a tapestry of trading that borders on something resembling a Rosetta Stone for the aspiring trader. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Just get the free EasyLanguage manual from TradeStation
Review: I just want to say "Thank You" to George Pruitt and John R. Hill for being so generous with their ideas and code. The both of you put a lot of work into this book and should be proud. I found your details of coding great in the help of developing my own systems. Excellent! Thank you both,
Mark
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I just want to say "Thank You" to George Pruitt and John R. Hill for being so generous with their ideas and code. The both of you put a lot of work into this book and should be proud. I found your details of coding great in the help of developing my own systems. Excellent! Thank you both,
Mark
Rating:
Summary: Think twice
Review: If you are looking for a clearly written, step-by-step lesson on how to get going with TradeStation EasyLanguage, this is not your book. I bought it for that reason, but found TradeStation's own "Becoming Fluent in EasyLanguage" far superior. Get this book if you want 200 pages of examples of trading strategies that worked for their authors.
"200 pages?" you say. Yes, about half of the book is dedicated to the title subject. Another 200 pages of "stuff" was inexplicably tacked on. A stock option course, interviews with traders, and appendices from EasyLanguage online reference. The book is so poorly edited that it refers to Appendix A as a function list, but the appendix is actually a much less useful list of syntax errors. Typos throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Think twice
Review: If you are looking for a clearly written, step-by-step lesson on how to get going with TradeStation EasyLanguage, this is not your book. I bought it for that reason, but found TradeStation's own "Becoming Fluent in EasyLanguage" far superior. Get this book if you want 200 pages of examples of trading strategies that worked for their authors.
"200 pages?" you say. Yes, about half of the book is dedicated to the title subject. Another 200 pages of "stuff" was inexplicably tacked on. A stock option course, interviews with traders, and appendices from EasyLanguage online reference. The book is so poorly edited that it refers to Appendix A as a function list, but the appendix is actually a much less useful list of syntax errors. Typos throughout.
Rating: 
Summary: Comments from Author
Review: John Hill and I wrote this book to help educate users of TradeStation's EasyLanguage. The first few chapters introduce the reader to the fundamentals of programming with EasyLanguage. These chapters cover data types, if - then and other decision constructs and overall EasyLanguage program structure. The book then moves into the analysis of trading system performance and optimization. Real world trading systems are introduced as tutorials. These systems aren't just simple moving averages, but sophisticated examples of the proper use of EasyLanguage. The daytrade system that is included demonstrates the use of multiple data streams and intraday position monitoring. The other systems include trend following, break out and zone analysis methodologies. Other programming topics such as modular programming, debugging and input/output are also touched upon. The book finishes up with interviews of some of the best known system vendors in the industry today. All EasyLanguage code (6.0 and 2000i) is included on CD.
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